Joshua Jackson Says ‘Fringe’ Needs Fan Support

Fans hoping that Fringeis on the fast lane for renewal might need to quell their speculative enthusiasm, because Fox’s sci-fi cult series is by no means out of the dark and cancellation is still very much a possibility.

Now, Peter Bishop himself, Joshua Jackson is speaking out – in the hopes of creating a groundswell of fan support.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Jackson revealed that even though Fringe started out well in its new Friday night timeslot, the ratings as of recent haven’t been stellar… and everyone (including the network) is noticing.

Despite Fox’s entertainment president Kevin Reilly raving about Fringe’s success last week, things appeared to have changed after the recent episode of Fringe continued the series’ noticeable ratings decline.

“I’m a positive person in general, but we really need our Fringe fans to tune in and watch us on Fridays. We did good when we first moved, but last week we did not have a good week, ratings wise. It is going to take the people [who] like the show to watch the show and start the campaign and show their support if they want to see us stick around for another season.”

The request has been made, Fringe fans. How can you make sure that you’re doing your part to help save your favorite series? It’s simple: watch Fringe at 9pm, on Fox – anything else doesn’t help.

While there are many, many ways to watch Fringe after it has aired, these means do not provide any support to the series. Hulu, Fox.com and (obviously) illegal torrents do nothing but provide supplement viewing options – and doesn’t have any impact on a network’s decision to renew a series.

Why? Because Fox makes almost no money outside of the original airing – even DVRing the episode doesn’t help. While The Nielsen Ratings will add a week’s worth of DVR viewings to the ratings, the networks and advertisers don’t even count those numbers. Even though I’m sure many will say it’s unfair not to count the DVR viewings, you already know why they don’t – most people skip the commercials on recorded programming.

So, if you really are a fan of Fringe and want the series to stick around for another year, will you be able to find the time to watch the series when it airs? If not, do you have any right to complain if it gets canceled?